Donald S. Boyce, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, announced today that on January 27, 2017, Michael H. McDaniel, 37, Belleville, IL, was sentenced for Receipt of Child Pornography and Possession of Prepubescent Child Pornography. McDaniel was sentenced to 97 months’ imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently, to be followed by a 10-year term of supervised release on each count, also to run concurrently. McDaniel was also ordered to pay a $200 special assessment. In addition, McDaniel paid $1,000 in restitution to one of the victims identified in the child pornography he collected and distributed. McDaniel was remanded to the custody of the United States Marshals Service when the hearing ended.

The charges arose when, on April 6, 2016, several electronic devices, including a Hewlett Packard computer and a Hewlett Packard laptop, were seized from the residence in which Michael H. McDaniel resided with other individuals and from McDaniel’s place of employment. On that same date, McDaniel provided a voluntary statement in which he admitted first viewing child pornography in February 2014, and claimed that he last viewed it around April 5, 2015. McDaniel also admitted downloading child pornography, but said that the other individuals who lived at the residence did not know that he did so and did not view it with him. McDaniel said that there would be child pornography on the work laptop and the desktop computer seized from his

residence.

A forensic review of both computers revealed that both contained child pornography, and that many of the images were of prepubescent children. The forensic review also revealed that, between on or about April 3 and April 6, 2015, the defendant received image and/or video files of child pornography via the Internet.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab Aresources.@

The case was investigated by the FBI’s Springfield Child Exploitation Task Force. The case was assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Angela Scott.